Steps You Can Take to Boost Your Home’s Value: In a Buyers’ Market, Details Count

There are steps home sellers can take to improve the likelihood of selling their property in the midst of a housing glut. Experts say homeowners can start by making aesthetic improvements, such as clearing out any winter clutter, washing windows, and painting and cleaning the front door so that the home looks appealing from a distance. The inside of the home should be devoid of personal touches, real estate agents say, including many items of furniture and anything that might be hanging on the walls. Sellers may even want to hire a professional stager to arrange a home so that it looks valuable and lived-in, but not cluttered. Roof repairs and other major maintenance expenses that might have been selling points at one time are now considered par for the course due to the ever-competitive real estate market, analysts say. To stand out from other properties, a home seller may want to consider a big-ticket renovation such as landscaping, or a room remodel. One of the largest obstacles to selling a home is sellers pricing their properties too highly. Experts say that because it is still a buyers’ market, sellers should accept the first reasonable offer they receive, preferably somewhere within 5 percent and 8 percent of the asking price. If a home is priced to sell, it is likely to receive numerous offers in a matter of weeks; but if this is not the case, experts say the sellers should lower their price, and after roughly three months should take the home off of the market for a time before putting it up for sale again. | Read More